What CASCAIDr’s been up to in it’s first month

CASCAIDr has been open a month and aside from a load of admin and responding to well-wishers, we’ve fielded requests for advice and support from about 25 people, asking either on their own behalf, or for loved ones.

We could already do with some more volunteers with social work skills to speak to people who are struggling – only about an hour or two at a time, and only on the phone, at a time that’s been booked, with details in advance. And you can always say no, if you can’t manage it. Please sign up on our site on www.CASCAIDr.org.uk under ‘Volunteer’

We’ve also been approached by advocacy groups, providers and social care staff who are directly concerned about the legality of the decisions they’re involved in. We want professionals to go up the legal literacy learning curve too, so this is great news!

The charity is already building up a picture of behaviours which go against the spirit and in some cases, the actual letter of the law as set out in the Care Act.

We’re going to do a series of live facebook video posts about these, all anonymously and at the level of principle, of course, but hoping to bring the issues to life, and generate donations to keep us going!

If anyone can offer us publicity on a national or regional scale, without insisting on photos of the people being assisted, please get in touch to belinda@cascaidr.org.uk or .com

The range of issues we have been asked to assist with includes:

A sizeable claim for retrospective payment to compensate for mis-assessed entitlement to CHC status

Complex psychiatric hospital discharge arrangements involving the need for CoP authorisation of deprivation of liberty within a Community Treatment Order.

Dodgy supported living arrangements where the Care Provider makes the nominations of tenants to the landlord and the client has to have the care commissioned on a fully shared care basis.

Threats to direct payments: both to amounts and management arrangements.

Missing assessments and reviews dating back to before the Care Act, so still based on FACS, not the law.

Ordinary residence issues in the context of a Shared Lives client.

Cost capping of the offer of home care if the person won’t accept a care home

Proposed cuts of over 40% on the current package, with no explanation or any justification other than austerity…

Shenanigans over fees being re-negotiated behind the scenes by a commissioner, without regard to the impact on a user’s care plan contents or quality of provision

Disputed liability (as between adults and children’s services) for helping a disabled parent care for her baby whilst under 2 yrs old.

A claim for unlawful detention arising out of a council simply failing to delay urgent authorisations into standard ones under the DoLS process (where the provider has conducted the so-called safeguarding enquiry).

Pressure on carers to keep on caring, no matter what the impact on them.

Refusal to increase a person’s direct payment, covering care at night time, on account of the new interpretation of the working time directive regarding sleep-ins

The DB Service’s decision to bar a person with a conviction when a teen, from volunteering with vulnerable adults, when he himself has a disability and was not given an advocate on referral to Safeguarding of a recent concern.

A care home struggling to tell the difference between self funders and full cost paying council clients, and thus not knowing who owes what to whom…

Please do download our information as to what we’re about, try to put it up on council Advice and Information services, and help us level the playing field – just a little! CASCAIDr Q and A 2018

About CASCAIDr

CASCAIDr is a health and social care legal advice charity founded by Belinda Schwehr in 2018. It is registered with the Charity Commission and operates independently as a company limited by guarantee, and blogs on this site when cases of wider interest to members of the public come its way. Its site is at www.cascaidr.org.uk and its phone number is 01252 725890.

2 thoughts on “What CASCAIDr’s been up to in it’s first month”

Only if we can find a company that wants to sponsor us so that we can distribute to Healthwatch and GP surgeries. It would say something like:
Struggling with hospital discharge? Under pressure to pay a top up in order to vacate that bed?
Been told that your care package is going to be cut by 40%, before anyone’s even looked at it?
Exhausted from caring for a person who’s got a direct payment, but you can’t find any half way decent care and support staff to spend it on?
Been told that you can have £450 a week to spend if you insist on staying in your own home, because that’s the cost of care home? Or not EVEN the cost of a care home in real life, but the cost that the council pretends it costs for an adequate care home placement?
Been told that your relative doesn’t stand a chance of qualifying for Continuing NHS Health Care, (free care) even though they are terminally ill?

All these positions represent what councils and NHS clinical commissioning groups are saying all over the country, and they can be challenged with LAW, LEGAL AWARENESS and LEGAL PRINCIPLE that public bodies can’t ignore.

CASCAIDr is a charity seeking to clean up decision-making so that people’s rights are worth having, and get people what they are actually legally entitled to. Please see http://www.CASCAIDr.org.uk or phone 01252 560 856.